@Wintergreen said:
I saw him a lot in execution, but that could just be because Radionaut and Freshy Q exist. He's never been used that much in ranked or obj/sw at all in my experience. Seems just as unloved as ever.

Hmm, never played exe that much when it was still up, but he was definitely a lot more popular before. I remember just a while ago when we was about as popular as fragger and pissing everyone off in ranked, lol

The storm just cleared... but I saw Thunder's flash blind 2 enemies in close proximity to Guardian's Skyshield despite it being up. Turns out that the flash bang exploded outside the Skyshield's reach.

Yeah I don't see a lot of Thunder anymore too. I mean he is still broken, but I think Javelin takes the cake in pubs.

I still prefer playing thunder than playing javelin, as I find Javelin more unfair than Thunder in a 1v1 scenario, despite the increased cooldown. The fact that you still have to go out and kill your enemies with your gun (and I only use mk46, I feel bad using the stark on Thunder and I am indifferent toward the timik) is much more rewarding than an insta delete.

It's almost like Thunder is weak garbage and the only things good about him are 170 160 HP and STARK. But hey, at the cost of just 10HP, you can get an ability that's just free kills all by itself whether you're playing 5v5 or 8v8, and switch from a STARK to a BR-16.

It's almost like I've been saying for months that nerfing Thunder concs further will just make people stop playing him and holy gasp lo' and behold he got nerfed and now he doesn't get played.

@K1X455 said:
The storm just cleared... but I saw Thunder's flash blind 2 enemies in close proximity to Guardian's Skyshield despite it being up. Turns out that the flash bang exploded outside the Skyshield's reach.

I don't mind playing him but he misses some "Boom! Boom!" compared to others . A group of 2-3 enemis? A Boom Boom merc like Javelin/Fragger/@$!# with sticky bombs is better than a guy that flash his self most of time.
Even if you flash all your enemies you take half of time to destroy that damn healing station,kill an enemy and then get @$!# by other enemies. A Boom Boom merc could do more in 1 sec

@K1X455 said:
The storm just cleared... but I saw Thunder's flash blind 2 enemies in close proximity to Guardian's Skyshield despite it being up. Turns out that the flash bang exploded outside the Skyshield's reach.

With the recent nerfs he received you have more chances to blind yourself up alone than blinding two enemies at once. Conc is actually pretty retarded to use now and it's incredibly hard to forecast the results even on a well placed grenade.

Um... I've seen ~5 Thunders in the last 4 days... not as many as other mercs, sure, but I HAVE seen people still playing him. Two of them were consistently spawn blinding to give us time to do the objective... So...

I don't care how much you've played or how good your aim is - If you haven't touched the game at least twice in three months then I see your "opinion" as hot moot.

The biggest problem with Thunder wasn't the stark, or his hp, since in higher lvl play you could just ban his use of the stark. The problem is the short fuse on the conc, which makes it entirely unavoidable and lack counterplay in small fights (i.e. 1/2v1/2). In larger fights it is much more tolerable, as the reductions in duration have meant that you have less time to kill enemies, meaning that using the conc against more than one or two people will likely get you killed. All it needs is a slightly longer fuse (like 0.2-0.4 seconds) to make it much easier to avoid in a 1v1, and encourage more skillful usage in closer vicinities, where the enemy should have plenty of time to avoid the effects.

@nokiII said:
Thunder isn't played because he isn't fun and before his well deserved nerfs people just played him because he was broken af.

Also, no other merc can kill multiple enemies with such pleasure by using the mk46. While the gun may not be good, mowing down enemies while they are concussed is the most fun thing in this game for me, even when he was useless about a year and a half ago.

I noticed he doesn't get played as often, but he still gets played. I see him on a daily basis. I think he'll definitely be used in Ranked when it comes back. Honestly, I wish Thunder would just get his EMP back though. I absolutely loved playing him before they took that away. Currently, Thunder's best appeal is his health pool and Stark and LMG. I prefer the LMG although it might not be as powerful as the Stark, it can definitely take down quite a few enemies with one clip.

You know, this thread has made me want to try him out again. He's one of my least played mercs and even though he got nerfed into the ground, he can still be a pretty viable merc. None of his loadouts really stand out that much to me, though. T45, S41, that drilled + tough + spares MK one I can't remember the name of. All pretty underwhelming. Hoping he gets some more work by the time G3 (not the gun, although that would be cool too) loadouts are here.

@Wintergreen said:
You know, this thread has made me want to try him out again. He's one of my least played mercs and even though he got nerfed into the ground, he can still be a pretty viable merc. None of his loadouts really stand out that much to me, though. T45, S41, that drilled + tough + spares MK one I can't remember the name of. All pretty underwhelming. Hoping he gets some more work by the time G3 (not the gun, although that would be cool too) loadouts are here.

S41 is my fav. The timik feels weird to me on him though, so I mostly just go for the LMG otherwise. I wish he had better melee weapons though. The kukri is buggy as @$!# and almost completely unuseable, and the stilnotto is, well, the stilnotto.

G3 might be pretty good if they decide to give him new weapons though. I'd like to see him with the Shar-C, fragger's LMG, or anything else fairly large that actually fits with his design.